17 British companies find themselves on the latest list of non-traditional procurement options for local authorities and housing associations.
3D concrete printing, thermal inspection drones, and green subsidence mitigation systems are among the environmental technologies added to the Social Housing Emerging Disruptors [SHED] framework.
Working with the Disruptive Innovators Network, Procurement for Housing [PfH] has identified domestic firms at the cutting edge of technologies that can overhaul social housing provision. Worth up to £100million per year, companies include manufacturers of renewable energy smart towers, robot insulation installers, and real time damp and mould sensors.
Now in its fourth year, SHED aims to remove and overcome the obstacles small businesses often encounter when trying to bid for public sector department contracts. Many report being frozen out of the process due to the length of time it takes to secure agreements, costing time, money and resources. Scalability is another recurring issue.
To mitigate this, innovations on the SHED4 list are eligible for a ‘light touch’ bidding process. Landlords can use online portals in the same way as shopping catalogues, identifying ideal products and services, with built-in pricing making contracting faster and simpler.
‘We had a range of firms bidding for the SHED this year and the 17 winners offer a wide variety of services. That’s a sign of where the social housing sector is right now and the myriad of problems and competing priorities it faces,’ said Neil Butters, head of procurement at PfH. ‘The market is responding to those challenges and our job with the SHED is to nurture both the SME supply chain and innovative procurement in the sector – both key goals of the new Procurement Act.’
‘Housing directors are inundated with the problems and risks of today, and often they don’t have time to explore how technology and AI can support them,’ said Annemarie Roberts, property lead at the Disruptive Innovators. ‘The sector is operating in a massively challenging environment, and one of the ways to meet increasing expectations and standards is to deploy innovative solutions. The SHED framework can help housing providers break this cycle, spot the best tech for their business and adopt it at scale.’
Find out more about the framework here.
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Image: SHED4 – Switchee real-time data analytics